Spatial Data Infrastructures in Australia, Canada and the United States: Spring 2003
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Spatial Data Infrastructures in Australia, Canada and the United States: Spring 2003 Report elaborated in the context of a study commissioned by the EC (EUROSTAT & DGENV) in the framework of the INSPIRE initiative August 2003 SPATIAL APPLICATIONS DIVISION K.U.LEUVEN RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT Vital Decosterstraat 102, B-3000 LEUVEN TEL.: 32 16 32 97 32 FAX: 32 16 32 97 60 URL: http://www.sadl.kuleuven.ac.be Report meta-information Title Spatial Data Infrastructures in Australia, Canada and the United States Creator Margaret Hall (HALL) Date Issued 2002-12-01 Subject INSPIRE State of Play – Activities 1 & 3 Publisher K.U.Leuven (SADL + ICRI) + Margaret Hall consultant (HALL) Description This report is a concise review of the components of the Australian, Canadian and US NSDI from the perspective of the INSPIRE-initiative Contributor Jos Van Orshoven (SADL) Format MS Word 97/2000 Audience Identifier rpAUCAUSAv5.doc Language EN Coverage Snapshot at 2003-07-25 Version number Date Modified by Comments 1.0 2002-12-01 Margaret Hall First version created (HALL° 2.0 2003-02-20 Margaret Hall Reworked first version for (HALL) inclusion in the first summary report of the State-of-Play study 3.0 2002-02-25 Jos Van Orshoven Integration in first summary (SADL) report 4.0 2003-07-25 Margaret Hall Consolidation and integration of (HALL) recent information and comments received from EC; Addition of report meta-information, abbreviations and acronyms 5.0 2003-08-08 Jos Van Orshoven Harmonisation with other 1st year (SADL) deliverables of the State-of-Play project EC-INSPIRE: Spatial Data Infrastructures in Europe: State of play Spring 2003 Australia, Canada and the United States Table of Contents REPORT META-INFORMATION....................................................................................................................2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .....................................................................................................................................1 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS.............................................................................................................2 1. OBJECTIVES AND METHOD.................................................................................................................3 2. GENERAL INFORMATION ....................................................................................................................4 2.1 THE AUSTRALIAN NSDI (ASDI)..........................................................................................................4 2.3 THE CANADIAN NSDI (CGDI).............................................................................................................6 2.4 THE NSDI IN THE US ...........................................................................................................................8 3. SPECIFIC INSPIRE-RELATED ISSUES IN AUSTRALIAN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES...............................................................................................................................................................11 3.2 COMPONENT 1: LEGAL FRAMEWORK & FUNDING...............................................................................11 3.3 COMPONENT 2: REFERENCE DATA & CORE THEMATIC DATA..............................................................18 3.4 COMPONENT 3: METADATA FOR REFERENCE DATA & CORE THEMATIC DATA ....................................20 3.5 COMPONENT 4: ACCESS AND OTHER SERVICES FOR REFERENCE DATA, CORE THEMATIC DATA & THEIR METADATA .......................................................................................................................................................23 3.6 COMPONENT 5: STANDARDS ..............................................................................................................23 4. ANNEXES .................................................................................................................................................26 4.1 LIST OF SDI ADDRESSES / CONTACTS .................................................................................................26 4.2 LIST OF REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................................28 K.U.Leuven (SADL-ICRI) + Hall 1 EC-INSPIRE: Spatial Data Infrastructures in Europe: State of play Spring 2003 Australia, Canada and the United States Abbreviations and acronyms ACA Australian Coastal Atlas AMWG ANZLIC Metadata Working Group ANZLIC Australian New Zealand Land Information Council ASDD Australian Spatial Data Directory ASDI Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure BGN Board on Geographic Names CANOGGIS Canadian Oil and GAS GIS CAP Cooperative Agreement Program CCOG Canadian Council of Geomantics CGDI Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure CGDI Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure CGNA Committee for Geographical Names in Australian CGNDB Canadian Geographical Names Data Base CPCGN Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names CSDGM Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata DEM Digital Elevation Models DLG Digital Line Graphs ESDI European Spatial Data Infrastructure FGDC Federal Geographic Data Committee GI Geographical Information GIS Geographical Information System GNBC Geographical Names Board of Canada GNIS Geographic Names Information System GSDI Global Spatial Data Infrastructure IACG Inter-Agency Committee for Geomatics ICT Information and Communication Technology INSPIRE INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe MET Metadata Entry Tool MSC Mapping and Science Committee NGDC National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse NLWRA National Land and Wildlife Resources Audit NRC NSDI National Spatial Data Infrastructure OMB Office of Management and Budget PIP Property Information Project PW Price Waterhouse SDI Spatial Data Infrastructure SDTS Spatial Data Transfer Standard SDTS Spatial Data Transfer Standard SGML Standard Generalised Mark-up Language TBS Treasury Board Secretariat USGS United States Geological Survey K.U.Leuven (SADL-ICRI) + Hall 2 EC-INSPIRE: Spatial Data Infrastructures in Europe: State of play Spring 2003 Australia, Canada and the United States 1. OBJECTIVES AND METHOD This report is a limited comparative review of the NSDIs in Australia, Canada and the United States on the one hand and the European INSPIRE-initiative for a ESDI on the other hand. The comparison reflects upon the similarities and the differences of these NSDI juxtaposed to the NSDI situation in the European Union, taking account as possible of the INSPIRE position papers1. This report draws upon the GINIE Report on a comparative analysis of NSDIs in Australia, Canada and the United States (Masser, 2002). It does however not aim at repeating it. The value added in this work is that is takes a number of the elements explored in the State of Play Study (see the 32 Country Reports for European NSDI) and looks at them in settings that are outside of the EU. Australia, Canada and the United States have excellent geo-portals and on-line documentation for their respective NSDI. Besides the GINIE-report, these sources have been consulted for compiling the report. The consulted web sites and documents are listed in Annex 3.2, 1 INSPIRE position papers, final version: RDM, ETC, DPLI, ASF, IST, IAS (latest version). K.U.Leuven (SADL-ICRI) + Hall 3 EC-INSPIRE: Spatial Data Infrastructures in Europe: State of play Spring 2003 Australia, Canada and the United States 2. GENERAL INFORMATION 2.1 The Australian NSDI (ASDI) The Australian New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) is responsible for coordinating the ASDI. ANZLIC was founded in 1986 by agreement from the Australian Prime Minister and the Heads of the State Governments, with the aim to coordinate the collection and transfer of land related information between the different levels of government and to promote the use of that information in decision making. This role has been extended to the development and management of the national spatial data infrastructure. ANZLIC launched the SDI debate in Australia with a formal discussion paper in 1996, following the publication in 1995 of a report on the benefits and costs of a NSDI (Price Waterhouse, 1995). The aim of the report was to examine the economic gains from developing, maintaining, improving access to land and geographic information at a national level. Price Waterhouse (PW) calculated that the ratio of benefits to cost was 4:1. Specifically, for the period of 1989-1994 these benefits were estimated to be $4.52 million Australian Dollars (about 2.6 million EURO). The main aim of the ASDI is to develop the spatial data infrastructure needed to support economic growth and social and environmental interests, backed by national standards, guidelines and policies on community access to data. The implementation of the ASDI can be summarized by six specific objectives3: Objective 1 Ensure the acquisition of complete and consistent data sets meeting the user’s requirements, even though data is collected and maintained by different jurisdictions Objective 2 Increase high level political awareness and support Objective 3 Development of a national directory system allowing users to identify and locate data sets Objective 4 Promote a clear understanding of the ASDI and develop a practical implementation plan Objective 5 Identify key priority programs which will benefit from use of the ASDI Objective 6 Provide a framework for development of policies and standards which facilitates access to spatial information The resulting ASDI model is comprised